Windrock - Feb 21, 2009

[tennesseewj]

Met with ATL ZJ, rstrucks, Sporer65, and some Toyota guys on Saturday. After fixing an idler pulley in a gas station parking lot, we were on our way to hit some trails.









After a long, gravel entry we finally made it to the first rocky part of Trail 3. Being that this was the first time my Jeep had seen a trail, I was a little (okay a lot) intimidated. I was very, very surprised that my Jeep did so well right here. It had to be the Jeep, because we all know I can't drive.

I don't have pictures of me making it up, unfortunately. Maybe someone else does. Here are a few of other people, though:

[tennesseewj]

Moved on along the trail until we got to a split that we couldn't quite pin-point on the map. The three bigger rigs broke off and we continued on straight. It went okay until he hit a pretty nasty rock.

Ben working on getting hung up:



And of course if he got hung up, you know I did!











Pivoted on that TC skid right there. Ended up bending it enough to give a pretty nasty vibe the rest of the day. Once we got off the mountain I dropped the skid and it went away completely. Definitely could have been worse.



The offending rock:



100 yds later...trail dead-ended. On the turn around, I butted up my transmission crossmember the to vertical face of that rock, sticking me pretty solid. We were finally able to jack it up and winch it off the rock. Thanks again to everyone who helped save me there!



After that, we made a slight wrong turn which ended up sacrificing Ben's cross bars, and then the Land Cruiser (I think his name is Dennis, if that's wrong I'm sorry) missed a line going into the big mud hold we bypassed on the way in and sunk himself pretty good. Winched out and stopped to check everything out.



Right after that, we came across some people with a flat.



Rick (I think) had stopped to help them out.



I think that's about all I have without being annoyingly repitive. I had an awesome time and really enjoyed meeting all of you. Thanks a million for everyone sticking around the help me get off that rock. Maybe if we meet again I'll have some more clearance and sliders so that won't be an issue

[SirFuego]

Nice! Looks like a good time.

[rstrucks]

Here's my recount of the days events. I'll pick up where we split off from the group led by Sporer65 (Ben) and TennesseeWJ (Adam) - You guys did some fairly challenging stuff in near stock Jeeps. Nice work and nice meeting you guys.

Me, ATL ZJ (Cam) w/ PaulKeith riding shotgun, and ACC guys 71-Cruiser (Michael) and Brian split off trail 3 onto a pretty nasty section of trail. After that we cruised some gravel passing the GIANT windmills and the huge hole in the ground from mining. (The property is owned by Coal Creek mining company) We ended up at trail 15. Cam made it up the first obstacle without too much drama. Then I watched as Michael tried. He was smart enough to know when to bypass - my brain wasn't working as well, read on. Michael and Cam both made it to the top section while I got hung up on a ledge 2/3rds up. I knew I would at least scrape my belly and I did. Not hard at all though. But when I hit, the Jeep just stalled. No sputtering, missing, nothing - just dead. It ended up being a blown PCM fuse. But why? Cam suggested "did you pinch an O2 sensor wire?" Bingo, the O2 sensor ws jammed into the floor. That turned out to be the easy part as access to the O2 sensor was somewhat limited since the ZJ was resting on its underside. We tried to pull me back, winch me back, and pull me forward - fail. I ended up crawling under the Jeep and barely got my hand on the connector for the O2 and successfully removed it from the circuit. After replacing the fuse I got up the ledge with the help of a winch cable. Then I tried to finish the trail. After making it up a couple more ledges I was working my way up another when a u-joint let go destrying the stub shaft. Brian and his FJ80(?) pulled me up in 2wd. Michael opted for the cable too. Cam made it after some tire spinnin.

Back at camp I made the necessry repairs to make the three hour trip home. Sorry for the broken breaker bar Cam and thanks for the cold beverage. Next time I won't break, get stuck, or leave the party early!

A BIG THANKS to everyone that helped me throughout the day. You guys were a good group to wheel with and we'll have to do it again.

Pics to follow.

[paulkeith]

transplanted to the right forum,

I had a blast riding shotgun in cam's junk. Seems like we wasted a lot of time interpreting their useless trailmaps and trying to figure out which trails we wanted to run. A lot of back and forths on the gravel roads, dead ends (at the windmills), guess it happens when nobody had been there before.

I got back in last night around 11 just to find my truck leaking oil everywhere, again. Sweet!

Here's some of my crap pics:








one of the yota sitting in said 2' deep axle-grease-consistency mud in front of a ledge that denied ryan too:



Yeah, had a great time, props to Cam for letting me ride along. It was cool to get to meet everyone, hopefully we'll set up some more trips soon.

I'll upload the rest of my meager shots and vids.

edit: rest of mine, i didn't get anywhere near as many pictures as i thought i did. oh well.

[rstrucks]

[rstrucks]

I would have more pics of Cam's buggy but he didn't take long enough on an obstacle to snap a pic.

Hopefully he'll have some pics from day two as well.

[Sporer65]

Ok, turns out I only have like 15 pictures and Adam got the same ones, so I won't bother loading them up. Good looking pictures though. Those windmills are pretty cool ain't they?

[tennesseewj]

Love this picture. Nice rigs, nice scenery. Just awesome

If I am ever at Windrock again at the same time as y'all again I'm definitely making it a point to watch y'all do the hard trails.

Does anyone know what forum the Toyota guys were from? I'd like to look through their pictures as well..

[ATL ZJ]

I had an awesome time guys. Good to meet all of you. Maybe next time we will have a better idea of where we're going and be able to run more trails. My pics from saturday are almost identical to everyone else's, but I did get a couple videos.



Sunday, Mike and I ran rattlerock while it was snowing with a guy named Roger in a '64 power wagon on 47s. The trail is hard to begin with- it's really just big rocks spaced 3-4 feet apart. To make it harder, the trail was slick and caused us all to slide off the rocks. It took the right combination of line, wheel speed, and even a little winch action to get us through.

I didn't get any good pics or videos of Roger's rig, but it has both rear steer and hydraulic cylinders mounted in the frame to be able to push the front axle out 3 feet on the fly. He was working all of the above to get up the trail and ended up breaking a driveline ujoint and yoke about 1/3 of the way up.

Mike made it up without any carnage, and I ended up getting hung on my muffler and yanked the exhaust off at the downpipe on the exhaust manifold. The weld holding the flange to the manifold pipe broke, so I ran open header for the rest of the day. Guess I'm finally in the market for a new manifold/real header, since mine has been cracked for years.





This IS the trail










Looking forward to wheeling with yall again soon.

[zukinut]

Mike is on ih8mud.com Name is 71-Cruiser i believe. There website is atlantacustomcreations.com


Will

[rradford9]

Great pics & looks like you guys had a good time. Let me know if you guys go back over there. I've gone over there a couple of times and spent more time searching for trails than wheeling. It'd be nice to be there with some people who know there way around.

[WJvol]

we should wheel sometime im in knoxville with WJ with some stuff on it......anyway looks like it was a good time!

[rstrucks]

we should wheel sometime im in knoxville with WJ with some stuff on it......anyway looks like it was a good time!

Here you go - http://www.mallcrawlin.com/forum/sho...093#post261093

Welcome to MC.

[WJvol]

sweet thanks rstrucks!